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Guest Author: Brynn Stein!

If the name Brynn Stein sounds familiar, it’s because she’s been here before. Oh, and her book Living Again is also a bestseller! She’s here talking about common themes in her stories, and there’s a giveaway!

Thanks for visiting, Brynn, and best of luck on the rest of your tour!

Living Again

Hi all,

I’m enjoying my blog tour so far, and have gotten a fair number of responses for my giveaway. If you haven’t seen any of my other stops on this tour, here’s how the giveaway will work. Comment below, and go to as many sites listed in the blog schedule as you’d like and comment there as well. Each blog you comment on will earn you one entry for my giveaway. Three prizes will be given. One signed paperback copy, and two electronic copies of Living Again.

Now to talk about other things.

Since I just got my promo pack for my next story, I thought I’d tell you a little about it. It’s called Through the Years and follows the two lead characters across almost fifty years. They met in the 1960s and instantly clicked, though one character, Gene, didn’t really think anything romantic could come of it and he was okay with that, as long as he could be with Edward. Edward, on the other hand, started having romantic feelings toward Gene, and was terrified by it, due to his homophobic upbringing. So much so that he left the state and stopped communicating with Gene altogether. They meet again a couple years later and the story goes on from there, but for the purpose of this blog stop, I’d like to focus on that early part.

I’ve mentioned in some of my other posts during this blog tour, that homophobia often plays a big part in my stories, largely because I see it so much, either blatantly or subtly in my daily life here in the Bible Belt. Not all churches are blatantly homophobic and I try to make sure that shows up in most of my stories too. There is very little mention of the church in general in either Haunted or Living Again but several churches appear across the decades in Through the Years, from Edward’s extremely homophobic church to much more accepting churches that actually welcome the gay couple later.

While my stories don’t have the church in common, they do all have extremely homophobic characters. A powerful man who all but owns the town that Jason lived in before he was killed, in Haunted. Daniel’s Uncle Lawrence, in Living Again; and numerous people in Through the Years. There’s Edward’s family, first and foremost, but there’s also his pastor, several people on the college campus where they met, and a small gang of people who encounter Gene years later and take exception to the fact that he was gay.

Another thing these three stories have in common is the theme of family. Some of the families are supportive like Jason’s in Haunted, but most aren’t. Neither Daniel’s nor Jonah’s family is supportive of their lifestyle in Living Again. In Through the Years Edward’s parents most certainly are not, though there are other family members across the decades who are, indeed, supportive.

These last two books both have children with disabilities in them as well. In Living Again, Ethan is a huge part of the story, where in Through the Years we don’t meet Luca until much later in the story and while I wouldn’t call him a minor character, he doesn’t have quite as much impact on the storyline as Ethan does.

I’m always surprised how my characters, who, of course, all draw from my experiences and research, can have such different stories to tell. Yes, there are similarities because I draw from a finite set of personal experiences and interests, but they all manage to retain their individuality anyway.

What about you, writers? Do you find similarities in some of the elements of various stories you have written? And readers, have you followed an author and found common threads here and there, even though the stories themselves were very different?

Comment below and let me know.

Below is my Blog Schedule. Thanks so much for stopping by today. Please pay a visit to these other blog sites as well. Don’t forget, the more you comment, the greater your chance of winning a copy of Living Again.

Daniel Larson has walled himself off from any possibility of romance since his lover died violently five years ago in Afghanistan. The same bomb that ended his partner’s life took the lower part of Daniel’s left leg. The only support Daniel has, his Uncle Lawrence, is dead-set against anything homosexual, including Daniel.

Now, a popular language teacher at the local university, Daniel’s suffering from a car accident that broke his one good leg. His uncle, who is much better at throwing money at things than offering emotional support, provides a rented power chair and a private in-home nurse. Unbeknownst to his uncle, the nurse comes in the form of a man named Jonah Thacker.

Instantly attracted, Daniel and Jonah fight their mutual feelings in favor of professionalism. They become friends anyway, and Jonah shares his life with Daniel, including his handicapped son, Ethan. As Jonah and Daniel grow closer, Daniel becomes more involved in Jonah and his son’s lives, even being there for Ethan when his medical conditions worsen. But when Daniel’s uncle finds out the nurse he’s hired is male, he uses all of his resources to keep Jonah and Daniel apart.

Brynn Stein has always loved to write. Fan fiction, original fiction, whatever. While Brynn wrote in numerous genres—everything from mystery, to contemporary, to supernatural—she had always tended toward strong male characters. And then she discovered “slash,” male/male romance, and all those strong male characters were finally allowed to express their love for one another. It seems that there are always at least two characters clamoring to tell Brynn their story.

Brynn lives in Virginia with one of her two two-legged children, and two four-legged ones. Her supportive family encourages her writing and provides a sounding board for fledgling stories. When she isn’t writing, Brynn teaches children with special needs. In free time, when such a thing exists, she reads anything she can get her hands on, and haunts bookstores. She draws and paints, and enjoys the outdoors—especially if she can get to the beach—and is always thinking about her next story.

Jonah and Daniel aren’t established at the beginning of the book, but we do follow them quite a while after they meet, become friends, and then something more. They have a lot of insecurities that keep them from being fully committed to each other for a while, though their hearts are intertwined almost from the very beginning.

Please include me in the drawing. As a reader I would say that it’s not always the case where each author follows a certain theme in each book but there have been some books that I’ve read by a certain author that was writing a very long series and about halfway through I stopped reading because it came to be repetitious. If you changed the character names and the name of the place you would have pretty much the same story every time.

I do have authors that I regularly buy books from and some do have similarities in their characters mannerisms, even though the story may be different. And like previous readers I have found a few which stick to a formula and it might as well be the same book with just a few name changes. Then again those are sometimes authors that are tied down to writing so many books a year and I have an author I follow who only writes one book maybe a year or even longer and each book is different, even thought it links to the same series. I found a lot of ‘chick flicks’ with the same formula so long ago stopped reading them, unless I wanted a mind numbing read for a flight or to get me to sleep LOL

Good luck with your book and the next ones, I look forward to reading them and thank you for a chance to win this one, if I am not to late 🙂

Jen, I’ll need your mailing address so I can send you the signed copy. Please also tell me if you want me to put anything in particular in the signature.

Ardent and Trix, let me know if you have a Dreamspinner account. It’s easier on this end if I can just tell them who you are and have them transfer a copy to your bookshelf. If you need other arrangements, please let me know that too.

Again, thanks SO much to all the hosts who helped me out, and thanks to all you who commented.